KISSED WITH A LIE
by serenidad
Summary: Loads of work. A grave mistake. And, at a familiar breakfast table, one must face question whether an abstract principle always covers the task at hand. [shortstory, complete]
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Note:**_ With this one-shot – in two parts, please forgive me - I'd like to comment on Picard's larger-than-life approach to truth, as he lays out to Wesley Crusher in „First Duty" (the sermon's impressive and appropriate in that context, no question about it). This might also provide some substantial explanation why Crusher & Picard never made it to a couple in the series.

* * *

_I wonder what he looks like_, Dr Crusher thought. _Perhaps it's a bored teenager, leaning casually against the wall, one knee in adducted position and sole pressed against tapestry. Probably bare-foot, in rugged clothes, but clean and fitting comfortably. One would recognize the shirt as hand-sewn at second glance, at most, if one spotted this concession to luxury in daily routine at all._  
She put down the PADD, as she caught herself distracted for about the tenth time. A massage of her temples brought minimum relief._ I wonder if that ever gets easier, elaborating hypotheses without jumping to conclusions. And whether I should talk to Deanna about my image of death as a teenager._  
Well aware that she could either continue now, and loose much less time overall on her report, or struggle for accurate documentation in hindsight later, she saved the results she had, and rose from her seat.

Sickbay was almost empty at this time of night. She spotted two nurses in the back, talking rapidly to each other, but with friendly and mirroring expressions. They apparently took a short break from caring or hypothesizing about their few patients, whom she discovered as sound asleep in their realm. Ensign Kha'zet had been talked into staying the night by Alyssa Ogawa in an exercise of patience, but it was his second concussion this week and his ravaging Klingon hormones would drive him into many others, but – Alyssa had justified his night stop – giving his brains a chance to recover first could only serve him well in the longest run. Two bunks to his left a Rayan woman recovered from birth of quadruplets, a number perfectly average among her species, she had assured Dr Crusher, but the CMO decided to rather cultivate a reputation of being overprotective than release her the same day. Luckily, the more happy than exhausted mother had put up no resistance at all, a behaviour which Crusher took into account as a hint of confirmation of her thesis.

Only minutes after the fourth baby had been handed to her mother this noon, Lieutenant Hayn had been brought in and, by a quick-thinking fellow engineer, placed at the tray closest to the wall. That made working on his severe plasma burns a little difficult, but the 'wall' now would vanish and reveal a fully operational emergency-care unit on command. Hayn stirred in his medically induced sleep. Selar had been able to avoid most of the associated damage to internal organs, but the transplantation had taken hours, and he would not wake up with the same face and be unable to use facial expressions for several weeks.

The CMO cast a quick glance at Hayn vital signs and checked on the emergency-unit to be indeed fully prepared and operational. Coping with this loss in communicating abilities would surely require Counselor Troi's skills and, in this special case, Betazoid intuitions especially. She quickly ran a scan with focus on the amount of endorphines, an indicator of whether the Lieutenant was in pain. Levels were not only within parameters usually described as no perception of pain, but at lowest level reasonable and responsible for his physical condition. Good work, she noted, and decided to join the nurses in their office for a short chat, if only to find out what their names were.

Then several things happened at once.

The floor bolted beneath her feet. Red bars on the walls joined the distinct alarm noise.

„Bridge to sickbay", Datas filled the room, „Prepare for income of causualties, number unspecified."

„Understood", Crusher sprang back to her feet, head spinning, and slammed her combadge. „Computer, alert all standard medical personnel to sickbay. Arrange equipment according to triage pattern Beta", she ordered. With eyesight less blurred, she saw the two nurses rush to mobile care units. Experience let them wait for the computer to dissolve the one intensive care unit in the middle of the room and replace it with three aligned triage units. When they shoved the units between the trays, first additional personnel arrived.

The CMO had a silent hard work not to jump to the assumption that „unspecified" from Data indicated a high amount of casualties. Even an incorrect number provided her with a sense of certainty; she calmed herself and soothed the indistinct strain. The lack of a figure to anchor on meant nothing, it just feels that way.

Watching the newly arrived officers allowed her a rough evaluation of their routine: Some quickly adapted to the role of being led by the night-shift nurses, either by following instructions or exercising tasks they were too busy to take care of themselves, others required explicit instructions on what to do, which supplies to put where, or an apparently simple task, just to wait until further notice. As the room was loosely crowded, the CMO called to a halt.

„Dr. Selar, you're with Brown and Pierson, sections B and C", the CMO positioned them at two of the units, „Doctor, distribute responsibilities accordingly", she added, as Pierson had more experience, but Brown specialized in emergency treatment. „Alyssa, you're with me on unit A, Ensigns Tuluk, Bak'phen, Cleaver, Chesimard, join us. Ensign Lo'Chan on communications", she decided, as the Vulcan would now be the only officer from lower ranks with permission to address her any time, even during surgery, and she knew her do conduct an exemplary set of priorities. „All above mentioned assemble their teams while I request an update on our workload", she informed them.

„Crusher to bridge..."

* * *

It was worse than even Crusher expected. According to several officers short of breath of pain and their injuries, the ship had been dragged into a subspace anomaly and not been able to free itself before several systems failure. LaForge had stopped by, got the skin on his temples closed so that he could use his VISOR, and sprang off the tray, back to engineering._ Adrenaline's the devil's substitute for hope,_ Crusher commented silently.

All triage units were manned and unmanned and then occupied again, she had lost track by how many crewmates – Twenty, twenty-five? Bleeding and moaning, some screaming in pain and desperation, got examined, diagnosed, and treatment prioritized. Ensign Cleaver at her right supplied her with pain killers, she did not even name them each time any more, even if they increased the dosage. She would only call out if Crusher switched to another medication, or crossed the line to narcotics.

Alyssa Ogawa was long handling her own set of patients: She performed minor treatments on patients in serious, but not critical condition. Patients with broken legs, but conscious and otherwise unharmed, got a shot of pain killers and their bones replaced in physiological position. As well-trained and experienced nurse, she so far proved up to the task, which could not be said about her greenhorn assistant. Crusher knew Alyssa to have asked for another officer to assist her, and got a note from Lo'Chan that Data would replace her, as soon as he was not needed any more on the bridge. Apart from the pure information that also meant:_ First, we've exploited supporting capacities of personnel, second, Data's the most capable navigator by far on the ship – we'll have to make it through this on our own._ Dr. Selar was running way too short on capable assistance as well, and with two sections of minor and lesser urgent injuries she needed Brown and Pierson for the assessments.

Alyssa did her best to avoid mistakes and save the patients from bad treatment: She had reprogrammed the computer to provide her with different coloured hyposprays, only red for pain medication that hampered breathing incentives. Instruments for use on wounds on the right side of the unit's surface, which was smooth and clean. Those measurements proved largely useful, but could not replace plain lack of knowledge in her sidekick: In the last thirty minutes, Cleaver had spotted her exceeding limits of pain killers that could be safely applied to a humanoid organism. Both times the patient had been screaming in pain, so Crusher did not blame the young officer for her wrong decision. For all novices in the field that proved to be the mile stone of their choice to go into medicine: Whether they were able to put thinking above empathy, head over heart, or not.

Crusher was re-attaching abdominal vessels when it happened. One hand holding the vessel's edges together, the other one,doing stitches to the major inner artery, she was forced to watch.  
The patient between Ogawa and the young nurse showed started coughing on his back. Ogawa grabbed for an intubation tube, but found none. Aorund them, all who could had their hands loaded. So Ogawa rushed to the replicator herself. And in this two minutes, the nurse grabbed a flexible tube, shouted „suction!" at the computer unit, and pushed the tube into the patient's throat, drawing light mucus and blood from his airway.

Crusher, feeling cold and numb, cried out to stop and to Ogawa, but her suture was not stable enough to let go. The officer on the tray had already stopped breathing.

When Alyssa was back at the table, she immediately realized what had happened, shoved the assistant from their patients head and inserted the tube with skill and certainty. She immediately applied medication to provoke spontaneous breathing, but to no avail: They had pumped him with adrenaline already. Ignoring standard procedure, Crusher called Lo'Chan from her post, who jumped in on the resuscitation attempts. When the CMO was done on the most critical part of her own surgery, she joined them and attempted to trigger the patients breathing by pulling off all untested measures that made sense to her.

Yet, the officer showed no attempt to breathe on his own, no sign of life, at any point during their treatment.

Time of death was set at three hours, sixteen minutes in the morning.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: In humans, the N. Vagus as an afferent nerve to the vegetative nervous system (the part you cannot control through willpower) has a branch in everyone's pharynx. Stimulating it can cause your nervous system to think it was time to dial down circulation and breathing, up to a complete respiratory arrest.

* * *

„Even molecular conversion did not work", Crusher ran her hands through her hair, always a sign of stress, even exhaustion. „It's supposed to have cells release all carbon particles to the blood stream, increasing carbondioxoide levels, and trigger breathing by docking to correlative receptors", she explained to the Captain, „Works on most humanoid species. It's not being taught in medschool, but has very limited side effects."

„Doctor, I am aware of your efforts", Picard replied in his deep, warm baritone. „You had casualties coming in for almost four hours. Allow yourself a break."

He filled her mug with steamingly hot, chocolate brown coffee and picked a croissant from the basket on the table. The crums left a trail to her plate. „Would you like to learn what happened? Or rather rest?"  
„You got that from Deanna, didn't you?", she put her hand around the mug. The warmth spread through her hand, her arm, into her stomach, her whole body. „You're making sense. Brings about a perception of control."  
„I see your bedside manners are up to date", he said, pouring himself a cup, „So what do you need me to tell you in order to get a concept on what happened tonight?"  
„Right now... nothing, honestly. If you don't mind."  
„If you say so, Doctor."

They ate in silence. The croissant was fresh, tasty, light on her lips. After drinking her coffee, she realized how tired and tense she had been. She knew the technique: Picard would wait until she started asking questions. They had been through such bloody mornings many times.

Whenever she lost someone under her knife, or had to declare someone dead unexpectedly, she felt the seeds of faith blossom in her soul. Nana had not put them there, despite her constant and committed gardening. An old myth presented sharing a meal as loaded with spiritual meaning, as supposedly a source of energy where attendees exchanged stories of their last encounter with an authority from higher levels. Quite on the contrary, Dr. Crusher drew strength for the upcoming dispute from the absence of conversation.

„How many?", she finally raised her voice.  
„Ensign Lo'Chan reported eight dead, twenty-seven wounded to me this morning", the Captain answered.  
„I suppose that's only those who could not leave sickbay directly after treatment?"  
„That would be my perception as well."

She took her time to empty the second cup.  
„Jean-Luc, how do you deal with false decisions?", she finally summoned the courage to address the inevitable topic.  
„What kind of decisions?"  
„Lowering shields or raising them", she guessed, „Addressing an ambassador with official title or as one's been introduced to you. Matters of proximity and distance, your bread and butter, but with severe consequences if chosen wrongly. That kind of decisions."  
„Well, in the profession of a negotiator I enjoy the luxury of reversible consequences, most of the time", he tiptoed around the core of her question.  
„What if you really messed it up", she heard herself say, well aware that this conversation was more a father-to-child-one than on eye level. „And you couldn't avoid someone coming to harm? Due to the course of action you chose?"  
„Then I remind myself of the options I had when I made the decision, what informations were at my disposal, and try not to condemn myself for a development which was unforeseeable at the time", he addressed less the question than rather what he mused to be on her mind. „And if I already was uncertain about which options to pursue, then I recall my motivations, and whether they were appropriate under the circumstances."  
„What if appropriate motivation led to the wrong outcome?"

He did not answer immediately. „Could you explain that, doctor?"  
„If you're options had been limited, your motivations were thoroughly reflected and altruistic and whatever standard you measure them against", she said very fast, „Would you still be responsible for what happened?"  
„Of course I'm responsible! I'm the Captain!" He had raised his voice, apparently unintentionally, and now visibly restained himself to a calmer attitude. „Doctor, would you please tell me exactly what set of circumstances we are talking about", no question mark.  
„A freshman tried to save another officer's live", she quickly summed up, „She took perfectly reasonable measurements, but did too much good. Side effects led to the respiratory arrest which I've told you about. So that makes me wonder -"  
„If you're commanding staff not knowing what they -"  
„_That makes me wonder_ -", she emphasized, not willing to let go of her lead now, „That despite all objective circumstances, one cannot be personally responsible for an outcome!"

He had waited for her to finish, showed no obvious sign of anger, but his voice was prickly and icy when he spoke. „As a Starfleet officer", he said, „It's not enough to look only at the outcome of one's actions. Through due _process_, during which one's motives _and_ actions, as reported even in hindsight must be the _truth, _Dr Crusher", he impressed firmly on her.  
„As humans", she hissed back at him, „We sometimes make the wrong choices, out of lack of knowledge, out of sheer humanistic intentions! One can _be_, but not be _hold_ responsible for that!  
„The truth, Doctor-"  
„Would serve no one in this matter", she stated, forcing the exchange back to an even level.  
„Looking at personal actions and motives is _not_ enough!"  
„Perhaps", she waved away his objection, „But I cannot end a career before it started, due to an assignment of tasks which **I** should have known someone was not up to, under extraordinary conditions, and due to lack of supervision."

They had exhausted each other's patience, and knew that, too.  
„I expect your report at fourteen hundred hours", the Captain said after a gruesome silence.  
„Aye, Sir."


End file.
